


Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

by Pufftmg



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pufftmg/pseuds/Pufftmg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco went missing in September and Voldemort fell with the roses in spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

 

  
_I am tired, I am weary_  
I could sleep for a thousand years   
A thousand dreams that would awake me   
Different colours made of tears 

\- Venus in Furs, The Velvet Underground

  
  
  
The darkness is comforting; it calls him, caresses him,  _welcomes_  him. The loss of control – the  _choice_  of giving control is a luxury he has learned to appreciate.   
  
A slither of cold hands down his sides, the cool half-breath along his neck makes him feel warm enough for the two of them.   
  
“I can hear your heartbeat Harry – it’s  _intoxicating_ ,” a whisper, barely recognisable, in his ear. The hands move towards his chest, stroking him gently, eliciting a short hiss from Harry’s lips. He opens his eyes to darkness and catches a glimpse of silver hair; the glint of inhuman eyes, flashing in the dark.   
  
It had started during their sixth year at Hogwarts; a fumbling encounter following an accidental meeting beside the lake. A moment of weakness between the two of them, or possibly just another way to best each other, significant only in that it was something often repeated.  
  
Harry is on his knees,  _always_  on his knees, back arched as Draco licks at his neck; drags his fingers slowly up Harry’s thigh.   
  
But it was never more than  _that_ , never more than an encounter, though the fumbling grew less as their experience grew more. Their friends would never understand, never accept, hardly surprising when Harry himself had never understood what they had, what they have.  
  
 _It’s cold in here_ , Harry realises, just before Draco bites and thought leaves him, blinding trails of light crawling across his vision. Maybe he hopes Draco won’t stop this time.   
  
Their meetings increased and time seemed to move quicker. They didn’t speak for a month when Draco returned from the Christmas break colder, more distant, with blank eyes and marred flesh. Harry could smell death on him and it made him sick. When they finally met in the Head Boy’s chambers it was desperate, frantic, almost animalistic. Harry could leave marks too; if only Draco would let him.   
  
Harry only feels warm when he is with Draco, when Draco is telling him, reminding him, how warm he is. Which is strange because the dungeons in the Manor are cold – they’ve always been cold and he shouldn’t be  _sweating_  here, gasping for air. But when has Harry ever done what he should.  
  
Valentines’ Ball in their final year and Harry was dragged into the gardens almost the moment his lips had touched Ginny’s. He had been devoured; all taste of her gone in the few minutes it took for Draco to tear through his lips, almost as though he was trying to scour her scent, her taste, her  _innocence_ , from their skin. Only when he tasted blood did Draco calm. It was surprising, the heat Harry felt, the almost-passion on the tip of Draco’s sharp tongue.   
  
He feels Draco against him now; feels his heart speed up as Draco removes his grasp on Harry’s neck and turns to kiss him.  _He’s beautiful_ , he thinks, and knows, in some things, that he cannot be wrong.  
  
The war broke out in earnest the day after the Leaving Ball. Voldemort did not even wait for the train to arrive at King’s Cross. Harry no longer only smelt death on Draco. They still met, when they could. There is always time when people are planning on a miracle. Draco went missing in September and Voldemort fell with the roses in spring.   
  
Harry is lucky to be kneeling; is lucky to have Draco holding him; pressing against him,  _into_  him. He doesn’t have the strength to stand – he hasn’t had it since he uttered the curse and re-established himself as hero of the wizarding world.  
  
They ambushed Malfoy Manor, Voldmort’s fortress, the month after Voldemort’s fall and when Lucius had fallen, his wife dead at his side, they finally found the secret chambers under the house, found the true horrors the Dark Lord had committed, found those who had been  _lost_.  
  
Harry’s breath is erratic, back pressed hard against the uneven stonewall. His trembling, uncontrollable, is not lessened even by the hard body pressed against him.   
  
They found Draco in the last cell, barely alive, certainly not human. Before the doors were fully opened he had struck down the first of the Aurors and after stunning him the remaining debated whether he should just be left to rot. Debated whether or not he even  _would_  rot.  _A_ monster they whispered, a Death Eater.  _A Malfoy_. In a world where terror had long become second nature, one more atrocity would not count. Harry slept at St Mungo’s, unaware of this final cruelty, payment for an Order spy, Dumbledore long gone and no one left to speak for  _him_.   
  
A moan and then a low laugh, a languid fluid sound cut short by a sharp gasp, nails tearing at warm flesh. Draco wraps his arms around Harry’s body, and draws him up from his slump on the wall, licking lightly across his chest. “Forget them, love - you have this.” Draco whispers and if Harry hears, he does not show it, eyes rolling backwards and hands scrabbling to take hold on the rough floor.  
  
Harry had found the file in the ministry, not by fate but an  _unfortunate_  slip of the tongue by the youngest Weasley. It was easier than he had thought to follow the disorganised paper trail left by incompetent officials.   
  
A hitch in Harry’s breathing and Draco turns to face him, eyes softening in almost sympathy.  _Almost_  sympathy because it was an emotion he had never been taught, never needed to use and if Harry looks now he can imagine they are back at the start again, after that first Christmas when Draco had been so silent and instead his eyes had said what his mouth would not. But he doesn’t look.  
  
Harry had joined him here; left the wizarding world to care for the only person who had ever made him feel human, feel alive. The only person who had called him Harry and  _meant_  it. He had found him an animal, wild and crazy.  _You_ , the creature had accused, had screamed, had pleaded. Eyes white and screeching like a lunatic but slowly, finally, he had been tamed. Draco would love him and punish him and Harry deserved this.   
  
He drags Harry back to the bed and into his embrace – warm now, if only for a little while, Draco satiated by Harry’s gift, eyes almost the silver-grey of his youth. Not sane enough to be released yet, perhaps  _never_  sane enough to be released but Harry is safe here _always safe_  and though the walls are for the monster, it is Harry who is sick and Draco who will heal him.  


 

_fin._


End file.
